Russia plans to sign official partnership agreement with OPEC

Nov 20, 2018

Russia is planning to sign a partnership agreement with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday. Novak said the deal would be discussed at the OPEC December 6 meeting.

On September 11, Novak had said that he believed OPEC and their allies within the production cut alliance should ink an agreement on the group’s broader cooperation in December so that the new partnership format comes in force from January 1. “It will be expedient to sign it in […] early December so that it comes in force from January 1,” Novak told newsmen.

The group plans to institutionalise and make permanent their current alliance, which began in late 2016. The current production cut agreement, in force from January 2017, has envisaged the group to remove a combined 1.8 million b/d of crude from the market to help the market rebalancing. The move helped to boost oil prices from a two-year slump.